Thank you so much for sharing your methods! As someone with adhd, who also hates clutter, I appreciate hearing this! I have my own hacks to organize and get rid of stuff, but it all needs to change with time as my situation changes. After my divorce, it was really freeing. Now as a mother, it’s more complicated.
I love how you wrote about lists. As someone with adhd, I usually make between 3-12 lists per day. It’s interesting how neurotypical use lists differently, or advice is to just makes a list. Do they not know how often we have to make and remake lists? It’s way more complicated. I literally have 3 separate areas I make lists daily. I have a list diary by my bed for when I make lists at home, a planner I make daily lists on for work everyday, and my general diary for making lists when I’m not at one of these two places.
I not only have my todo lists, I have a list of things to do when I am too distracted and I am avoiding the primary todo list (one method I I have is if I can’t make myself do certain tasks that need to be done, I find something else I want to do even less, and put those two things against each other, eventually I’ll do one just to procrastinate the other-which then makes the other one easier ) I have a 2nd level todo list full of more tasks that I need to write down while doing my primary todo list (to keep me from getting distracted) but I can’t touch the second todo list until I do at least three things from the primary todo list (also best not to look at 2nd list until do many are completed on primary otherwise I’m overwhelmed and give up). And then even my todo lists are set up with multiple columns with different categories for stress vs recovery. Recovery tasks are boring tasks that I’m likely to get bored at (laundry folding, dishes, grading papers at work, etc) while stress activities require more mental effort which is exhausting (making an appointment, dealing with clutter, making more lists, dealing with objects, etc). The idea is for me to have the right balance of stress tasks vs recovery so I don’t get to bored or to stressed, so they balance enough to keep me me going.
I hate how people say “just make a list!” Like it’s the answer to all. As someone with severe adhd, I have a freaking science to list making that they will probably never comprehend just to freaking function.